The Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ naval force confirmed, on Thursday, the arrest of a ship “carrying one million liters of smuggled fuel” in the Gulf, according to the news agency “.Fars“.
And the agency stated that the patrol ships of the Revolutionary Guards’ naval force in the Gulf, “stopped, by a court ruling, a ship carrying 900 tons of smuggled fuel, with 12 crew members on board.”
Details of the arrest of this ship have not yet been published, according to the Iranian agency.
A spokesman for the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet, Tim Hawkins, told Al-Hurra on Thursday that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Navy seized, on Thursday, a merchant ship possibly involved in smuggling activities while it was transiting the Gulf in international waters.
Hawkins added that the US Navy has deployed naval assets to closely monitor and assess the situation without requiring additional intervention.
Hawkins confirmed the US Navy’s continued readiness to protect lawful maritime traffic in the Middle East.
It is noteworthy that the US Navy confirmed that Iran tried to seize two oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz at dawn on Wednesday, revealing that an Iranian ship had fired at one of them.
Hawkins reported, on Wednesday, that the Iranian navy ship retracted the two attempts to seize it, after the intervention of the US Navy, so that the two commercial tankers would continue their journey.
The US official said that the firing from the Iranian side on one of the two tankers did not cause any injuries or serious damage.
Since 2019, the strategically important Gulf waters have seen a series of attacks on cargo ships in times of tension between the United States and Iran.
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2023-07-07 01:41:08
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